Methods to integrate electronics with 3D objects are known in the art. US 2014/0257518, which is incorporated by reference, describes for instance a bioelectronic device and a method of making of such a device. The device of US 2014/0257518 includes a scaffold formed via 3D (3-dimensional) printing. The device also includes a biologic and an electronic device formed via 3D printing, with the biologic and electronic device being interwoven with or coupled to the scaffold. The electronic component may, e.g., include at least one of hard conductors, soft conductors, insulators and semiconductors. The scaffold may be formed of at least one of synthetic polymers and natural biological polymers. The biologic may include at least one of animal cells, plant cells, cellular organelles, proteins and DNA (including RNA).
LEDs are realizing a revolution in the world of lighting. Technology is no longer restricted to glass bulbs and tubes with standard fixtures. LEDs are very small and can be combined or even embedded in all sorts of materials: glass, silicone, wood, plastic, or textile. This opens up a whole new world for lighting designers. Organic shaped luminaires for example are very appealing products. Therefore methods are looked for that allow populating large and organic shaped objects with LEDs.
Traditionally LEDs, like other semiconductor dies, are assembled by automatic pick and place equipment on planar 2D printed circuit boards. These circuit boards can be rigid or flexible. Flexible printed circuit boards, like linear LED strips, are assembled in 2D but can be bent and twisted to a certain extent afterwards. This has already opened up a large number of new lighting applications.
Products with a sort of 3D lighting appearance can be made by inserting, for example, LED strips inside a transparent 3D shape in combination with light guides. This method is restricted by the bending ability of the strip, the pitch of the LEDs on the strip and the optical design and efficiency of the light guides.
More advanced 3D electronic lighting devices can be made by moulded interconnect device (MID) technologies. In such technologies, conductive tracks are formed on a product moulded with a dedicated polymer material. It allows LEDs to be placed in any angle and direction. However, a non-pick-and-place solution is preferred for use on odd shaped surfaces, as populating such surfaces with electronics would require having a large degree of freedom manipulation of the receiving carrier substrate or an ‘any angle’ place tool, which is an expensive solution. An example of electronics that can be used is OLEDs. Flexible OLEDs hold the promise of being able to provide a free form emissive shape, but these are still in early development.
Hence, there is an interest in providing electrical components such as LEDs, but also other electrical components like sensors, solar cells, etc., to (complex shaped) 3D objects. However, technologies presently known often have a suboptimal compromise between flexibility, electrical power, simplicity of the technology, complexity of the 3D object that can be generated/processed, etc.